Ray McCline remembers the first time he ever saw Thomas LaManna step into a boxing ring.

“The first time that I met him, I was training “Mighty” Mike Arnaoutis for the USBA (super lightweight) title up in New York (in 2009),” McCline said. “Thomas was in the gym with one of the guys we were sparring with and we needed two extra rounds. I asked Thomas to come in and he was all over the place. I remember we had to stop because “Mighty” Mike was like, ‘I can’t do this’.

“And here it is now. I’m training him for the USBA title. It’s just something how boxing comes full circle.”

LaManna, a Millville native, will face Dusty Hernandez-Harrison for the vacant USBA welterweight title at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, PA on Thursday night. The fight will be broadcast live on CBS Sports Network.

LaManna, 24, has grown quite a bit since that sparring match and during his boxing career. He enters Thursday’s fight with a record of 21-1, with his lone loss coming at the hands of Antoine Douglas on Showtime Boxing for the vacant WBA Fedelatin middleweight title on March 3, 2015.

Since then, LaManna moved down from middleweight to welterweight and has gone 5-0 with two knockouts and three unanimous decisions. And even though the loss is far behind him, this fight offers the Millville High School grad a shot at redemption on a national stage.

“My last outing on TV I looked horrible and I lost,” LaManna said. “I had the worst of all three worlds happen in one night – I lost, I got stopped and I got dropped. I don’t think anything else worse could have happened.

“It taught me that you can’t play boxing. I’m happy it happened because maybe I felt like I was on my high horse. It made me realize what I had to work on, what I had to fix. Now is my opportunity to show that it’ll never happen again.”

That’s where McCline comes in. The duo has come together for this fight after LaManna parted ways with former trainer Raul “Chino” Rivas. Rivas was with LaManna during his last five victories.

McCline can see LaManna’s improvements as a fighter and as a person and believes all of that will be a big help Thursday.

“I think he’s maturing,” McCline said. “He’s starting to show a lot more maturity and he’s being more comfortable within himself, which I think shows in his fights as well as in the gym. He’s being a little more patient. He’s understanding what his true strengths are and how to use those in the ring.”

Those strengths include his height and build. Now that LaManna has dropped down from to welterweight, his 6-2 frame allows him a lot of different opportunities in the ring. His strength, which was seen as a deficiency at middleweight, is starting to show as well.

“I was fighting at 160, now I’ll be at 147. I was the bigger guy,” LaManna said. “I was always taller at middleweight and maybe the same physique. Now I’m fighting smaller guys, just taking control. I’m dictating the whole fight. I think my power is finally coming down.”

LaManna will now get to put all of his newfound skill against Hernandez-Harrison (29-0-1). The 22-year-old’s last fight was his lone draw against Mike Dallas Jr on May 13. Though the two fighters have never fought officially, LaManna and Hernandez-Harrison are hardly strangers.

“We go way back in the amateurs,” LaManna said. “We’ve sparred before. We’ve hung out. I even stayed over his dad’s house before, so it’s not like I’m unfamiliar with him. There’s a lot of hype because you have two young fighters who are willing to fight on national TV. We’ll see who’s the better man, I guess.”

It will come down to the game plan that McCline and LaManna have put into place. Hernandez-Harrison is also tall for a welterweight at 6-0 and LaManna believes he presents a unique opponent.

“I’m not only the tallest, I’m the biggest (opponent),” LaManna said. “He’s a big 147 and he’s had some fights at 152, but he’s fighting guys who are 135-140 pounds and are blowing up to fight him. And he’s been dropped by those same guys. I’ve fought grown, physically strong middleweights and I beat ‘em easy. That will play a big factor to my benefit.”

“For us, we feel pretty confident that we’ll be able to match him speed-wise, we’ll be able to match him strength-wise and we’ll be able to match his endurance,” McCline added. “Everyone talks about his endurance, but again, he’s been fighting smaller guys. Will he be able to show that with us and present the same problems that he normally presents that for someone else?”

“This fight means everything to me,” LaManna said. “It's now or never as it will change my career and it will show where I am in boxing.”